My limping laptop seemed like a minor problem in comparison to the Thomas Flyer being stuck in the snow during the 1908 NYC to Paris auto race. (National Archives photo)
I thought that normalcy had returned, that I could get back to putting up posts and reading blogs and commenting on posts and responding to comments. Ha! The keys on my laptop went bad. So I jumped to my backup computer. Bad decision. It crashed. Not just crashed, mind you, but crashed with two long posts I had just written about the 1908 22,000 mile automobile race from New York to Paris. It was a doozy. The race started in February— and no one had ever driven across the US in winter. Then the cars were transferred to Siberia by ship for the next leg! I became interested in the race when I found the actual vehicle that won, a 1907 Thomas Flyer, in the National Auto Museum in Reno when I was traveling down Highway 395.
The Tomas Flyer at the National Automobile Museum in Reno, Nevada.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the clock was ticking. Peggy and I are taking off on a one month trip through Arizona and New Mexico and it looked like I would be computer-less. Horror of horrors! So I went out and bought a new MacBook Pro. It arrived yesterday. We leave tomorrow. I couldn’t have cut it much closer.
It’a a beauty. The screen features a sand dune that adjusts to ambient light. Makes me want to head back to Death Valley. It’s so fast, I’ve named it Jack, as in jack rabbit. I have another Jack name for it when it misbehaves…
I’ll rewrite my auto race stories but I just wanted to give you an update on why I am still playing hooky from the web. Here are a few recent photos…
I know, I post lots of photos of cute deer, but check out how this young fellow has his legs crossed. It was like he was posing for me. Hemp, hemp, hooray! I think Jackson County is vying for hemp capitol of the world. Peggy and I counted 20 farms between Medford and our home. Last year, there was one.Our book club made its annual visit to our house in September. We are now celebrating being together for 31 years— the same five couples! This is Peggy with the book club founder, Ken Lake.It can be disconcerting when you look out your window and see this, as we did two days ago. A fire was raging less than a mile away. Fortunately the forest service had warned us that it was doing a controlled burn. Here’s to keeping it controlled.Another photo of the controlled burn. My last shot for now.
Board sidewalks in Virginia City, Nevada that once kept the town’s residents out of the dirt, dust, horse poop and mud, now add an element of charm and authenticity to the old west town whose silver fortunes helped make Nevada a state and build San Francisco. The sign promised you could “See the Silver Queen dressed in 3,261 Silver Dollars.”
“To find a petrified man, or break a stranger’s leg, or cave an imaginary mine, or discover some dead Indians in a Gold Hill tunnel, or massacre a family at Dutch Nick’s, were feats and calamities that we never hesitated about devising when the public needed matters of thrilling interest for breakfast. The seemingly tranquil Enterprise office was a ghastly factory of slaughter, mutilation and general destruction in those days.” Mark Twain on his creative days of writing “fake news” as a reporter for the “Territorial Enterprise” in Virginia City during the 1860s.
Twain took full advantage of people’s fascination with macabre as a journalist in Virginia City, creating events if the news of the day was boring. I wondered what he would have made of this woman’s skull I found staring out at me from one of the shops. I arbitrarily decided he would whip out a tale about a love affair gone wrong. Sex and murder are bound to draw the reader’s attention. Then I saw another skull in the window and decided the woman was yelling…BAD DOG!I suspect that Twain would have made an interesting story out of this Virginia City coach as well. My thought is that he would have tied it in to how long you had to wait to cross the main street that was clogged with ore carrying wagons.
Quivera, our 21 foot RV, was whining again as I drove her up the curvy, steep Geiger Grade to Virginia City from Highway 395. “Stop complaining,” I told her, “or we will go explore more four-wheel drive dirt roads.” She piped down immediately.
The town is perched on the edge of Mt. Davidson at an elevation of 6, 140 feet, providing dramatic views of the surrounding country.
The hills behind the picaresque St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Virginia City seem to stretch off into infinity.Another view of distant vistas. This one includes Sugarloaf Mountain. Dozens of mines once climbed up the slopes and spread throughout the Six Mile Canyon that stretches through this area.
It all started with a gold rush in 1859. There was a lot, but it was mixed in with a chunky black rock that resisted being separated from the gold. As it turns out, the dark rock was silver ore and it was much more plentiful than the gold. The ore was part of the famed Comstock Lode, the first major silver strike in the US. It was a strike that would create several millionaires, help fund the building of San Francisco, provide the North with much needed cash during the Civil War, serve as an impetus for creating the state of Nevada, and lead to the founding of Virginia City.
Samuel Clemens arrived in Carson City, Nevada by stage coach in 1861 with his brother Orion who had been awarded a plum position as secretary to the Territorial Governor of Nevada. Orion had earned his appointment by working in Abe Lincoln’s campaign for President. He invited his brother along to serve as his own secretary. Samuel found the job a bit tame for his creative imagination, however, especially given all the ‘get rich quick’ schemes that were floating around in the West. His first effort was to run a logging operation at the still wild Lake Tahoe. Lumber was in high demand. That adventure ended with his campfire escaping and burning down the trees he planned to log— plus a substantial part of the surrounding forests. He then decided he would try his luck mining for gold and silver, an effort that had similar results for him, except he didn’t burn down any more forests.
The Territorial Enterprise newspaper out of Virginia City saved Clemens from his life of toil in 1862. It also provided him with his life-long calling. The editor had been impressed with several ‘letters to the editor’ he had written and invited him to write for the paper and serve as city editor in Virginia City. He was soon earning an impressive forty dollars a week and had taken on a pen name, Mark Twain. As he notes in Roughing It, his delightful book about his adventures in the West, he rarely took his pay. He didn’t need to. Reporting was a profitable business. There were hundreds of wildcat mines that stood little chance of making a profit. Not to worry. Miners would select a snazzy name and then print up fancy stock. A favorable article in the newspaper would almost guarantee that the stock could then be sold for hundreds, if not thousands of dollars. Miners lined up eagerly at Twain’s door hoping for positive articles and paying him in stock to assure that the article was written. Forty dollars a week was chump change.
Twain remained in Virginia City from 1862 to 1864 before heading west into California. Virginia City continued to grow and prosper into the late 1870s reaching a population of some 25,000 people. A massive fire wiped out the town in 1875 but it was rebuilt within a year. Most of the historical buildings found in Virginia City today are from the post-fire era. There are some beauties!
The Victorian Savage Mansion served as both a home and office for the Savage Mine. President Ulysses S. Grant gave a speech from the second floor balcony. The town’s main street runs above the house.This is what the mansion looks like from above.The Forth Ward School was a symbol of pride for Virginia City. Capable of holding over a thousand students, it utilized modern education techniques such as team teaching.A side view of the Forth Ward School. It now serves as a museum. A major mine was located across the street.This early photo of the Choller pit mine and the Fourth Ward School.The Storey County Court House is another attractive building found in Virginia City.A front view with the building date prominently displayed. A sign on the front door reported that DMV was closed on Friday. One other note: Justice is blind, right. Not here, she can see. Justice looked down on the streets of Virginia City and likely saw more than she wanted to.The Piper Opera House is just down the road from the courthouse. I have always been intrigued by the number of early western boomtowns that featured opera houses.This Presbyterian Church was one of the few buildings to survive the 1875 fire.Both the imposing St. Mary’s in the Mountains Catholic Church and its smaller cousin, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, had to be rebuilt after the fire.While we are talking fires, this was one of the early firehouses in Virginia City. It is now a museum housing various fire fighting equipment.Such as this fancy fire truck. Apparently looks were as important, and possibly more so, than fire fighting capability.I don’t know what this building was in its earlier life, but I found it appealing.Another view of the building. It was up the steep hill from my RV campground. Just about everything in Virginia City is up or down a steep hill! The bright blue house behind the Jeweler’s shop made a fun contrast. Any visit to Virginia City calls for a leisurely stroll up and down C Street, the towns main drag. This is what it looked like in 1866 before the fire caused it to be rebuilt.Then, as now, the city had its fair share of saloons and then some! The Bucket of Blood Saloon refers to the buckets of water that had to be used each night to clean up the blood left behind by fighting miners. Inside the Bucket of Blood Saloon today. I was impressed by the saloon’s expensive look. Photos of early Virginia City were featured beneath the bar. The one you can see featured a V&T train.A mural in the center of town also features the Virginia and Truckee Railroad. Built in the 1870s, the railroad carried millions of dollars worth of gold ore to Carson City and Reno. Rebuilt in 1974, the V&T now carries tourist from Virginia City to nearby Gold Hill or farther afield to Carson City in ornate cars pulled by vintage steam and diesel engines. All aboard!The mural, which definitely needs some loving care, also featured the Piper Opera House, a dancing girl, and what I assume were stained glass windows from one of the churches.Continuing my stroll along C Street, I found this blacksmith shop.The Crystal Bar.The Red Dog Saloon. An upstairs windows offered painless dentistry. These were pre-novocaine days. I wondered how much booze would be required. Law offices offered ‘acquittals in most cases.’ A room was one dollar. For another dollar you could have a bath that came with an attendant. Did he/she wash your back?This bar looked intriguing. I was tempted but 10 AM is a little early for me.A building that apparently came without a saloon.And another.Some amusing signs I found along C Street.And my favorite.I couldn’t help but think of the TV series. In fact, Virginia City owes a lot to Bonanza. It was the go-to town for the Cartwrights. People who enjoyed the immensely popular series became interested in seeing the town, which gave Virginia City a substantial boost in tourism during its 14th season, 431 episode run.The well-know map of the umpteen thousand acre Ponderosa that kicked off each episode of Bonanza. (Mark Twain’s fire, BTW, would have burned a portion of the Ponderosa had it been for real. The Cartwright family would have been after his hide.)Virginia City’s most famous Madame, Julia Bulette, was even included in an episode of Bonanza. Little Joe falls in love with her and Ben disapproves, a natural reaction for a dad when your son falls in love with a lady of the evening. When Julia helps save numerous lives, which she did in real life, Ben relents. The Number 1 hat on the left was given to Julia by the town’s firemen who considered her a hero and a friend.Any post about Virginia City should include something about the silver and gold mines. These are mine tailings. Mines were located almost everywhere, including under the city.You hear a lot about stamp mills when you visit the early mining towns of the west such as Virginia City and Bodie. Here is the device that gives the mills their name. The steel booted rods act like pistons rising and falling to crush ore that is fed into a pan at the bottom. You can imagine the infernal noise created. Mark Twain worked feeding one of these machines. It was his job to use a sledgehammer to break up larger pieces of ore to throw into the pan. He lasted for a whole week and earned ten dollars for his 12 hour a day, six day a week job. Mining is dangerous work. These square-set timbers developed for mining in Virginia City made it safer by providing more protection from cave-ins.The mines reached a depth of over 3,000 feet, creating further challenges. One was keeping ahead of the underground water that constantly threatened to flood the shafts. The other was dealing with heat. As the depths increased, the temperature of the geo-thermal water increased. Falling in meant being scalded to death. Ambient temperatures in the mines reached up to 130 degrees F. One solution to the water problem was the Sutro Tunnel that was built at a painstaking pace of 3.2 inches per hour for approximately four miles and allowed up to four million gallons of water a day to be drained. The cart above was used by miners working on the tunnel.I’ll finish my post with this view of a quiet day in Virginia City. If big crowds and lots of excitement are your thing, you might want to visit on the Fourth of July, as the sign recommends— or time travel back to the 1860s and 70s!
NEXT POST: We will journey up to Reno and visit one of the world’s most impressive auto museums— and see some really classy autos.
I never expected to see a logging truck coming down our road but thanks to drought brought on by global warming, we had 43 trees to remove!
It’s time for a quick break from my Highway 395 series to bring you up to date on current events in our never-boring life such as a logging operation in our backyard. I’ll be back to Highway 395 and Virginia City in my next post.A note on photos: Peggy and I shared photographer’s duties on this post.
Removing 43 Douglas firs from our five acres was not anything Peggy and I looked forward to, either from an aesthetic or financial perspective. Global warming didn’t give us a choice. Severe drought weakened a number of our trees and voracious pine beetles took quick advantage of the situation. We decided to be proactive in hopes of slowing down or stopping the beetles.
I am no stranger to logging operations. My father was the electrician for a lumber mill when I was growing up. We considered the mill with its logging pond as part of our extended play area, much to the dismay of the nighttime and weekend watchman. He had an extensive vocabulary of swear words that he liked to share with us. We even had a logger with his logging truck living next door. He’d wake us up at 5:00 a.m. on summer mornings as he dashed off to collect his first load of logs. Since then, my backpacking trips have occasionally taken me through areas that were being logged.
None of this is anything like having a logging operation in your backyard, however. I didn’t actually hear anyone shouting “Timber!” but the buzzing sound of chainsaws accompanied by the crashing sounds of large Douglas firs (some over a hundred feet in length) was our constant companion for a week.
Peggy hiked up and took photos of the logs being hauled out of the forest…We watched as the logs stacked up in our backyard.And then were loaded onto a truck. (There were two loads.) Check out the claw!This large claw, designed to grasp logs and load them on to the truck, was operated from the front of the truck by the owner, Davron Holland.We waved goodby to our trees as they were hauled away.Speaking of claws, all of the commotion disturbed the forest spirits that live in our canyon. Peggy and I came home one day to find our hammock being shredded!Was it the same creature that left this mark?It appears that its claws were of an appropriate length. Could it be the legendary Bigfoot?Not likely. My nephew Jay Dallen and I check out a Bigfoot family at Crater Lake National Park. They hardly seem the type to rip up a hammock… (Jay, you may remember, backpacked a hundred miles with me last summer on my 750 mile trek down the PCT.)Maybe Bone was having a bad day. My blogging friend, Crystal Truelove, took him up to the Bigfoot trap to show him what it feels like to be locked up. But Bone is good friends with Crystal. She took him back for a visit to the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma this past year and he got to hang out with Cherokee princesses.Also, he had a photo shoot with Jay’s actress friend, Nichole Tompkins…And was feeling quite balanced!This fellow at Crater Lake was a possibility. I refused to feed him a peanut, but a) his claws were too small and b) Nichole shared a PB&J sandwich with him.This buffalo we found in Al the Wop’s Bar in Locke, California last week had the right horns but his unique eyeshade eliminated him.This Stellar Jay was unhappy enough to take on the challenge. He was hot! But again, his claws weren’t up to the job.We found several possible candidates on our road trip through the redwoods where we found the claw marks. But they were too far away.Maybe it was an irritated buck with an attitude problem. This was my prime candidate with his “Are you looking at me!” pose. Turns out, it was a fellow that hangs out with him, a young spike with two small but sharp horns who was suffering from severe antler envy. He was using the hammock to clean the velvet off his antlers.
And Other Events…
My niece Marion and her husband John. They had come out from Tennessee to collect my brother’s 32 foot RV that he had left in my backyard when he passed away. It was big! We were glad to see it go. Next was a visit from a fellow blogger, Crystal Trulove. As most of you are aware, the friendships that evolve from our blogging are special. Crystal was in town for the Shakespeare Festival in Ashland and stayed at our house. She treated us to the wonderfully whacky play, “Alice in Wonderland.” The African cloth in the background, BTW, was sent to me by another good blogging friend, Linda Leinen at Shoreacres. Linda and I share a common background of having lived in Liberia, West Africa.We had a delightful visit with Jay and Nichole. Here we are at a Beach Boys Concert at the Britt in Jacksonville, OR.We took Jay and Nichole to our favorite kayaking spot, the Bigfoot trap, and…to Crater Lake National Park. Here Peggy and Nichole share a look. (I am not sure it is possible to work more blue into a photo.)Jay offers a piggy back ride! On our way home from Crater Lake, we were treated to this sunset in the Applegate Valley. When Jay and Nichole left, Jay was heading off to film a National Geographic reality adventure show across Russia and Nichole was heading for Barcelona where she has a film opening.We went on a short road trip through the redwoods. They’re big.Until the national and state parks were created to save the redwoods, they were rapidly being cut down. My seat is an old stump.And note the burls! I will be doing a much more extensive post on Redwood National Park (and Crater Lake) as part of my national park series.We ended up visiting my old friend Tom Lovering who lives on the Sacramento Delta with his friend Lita in the town of Clarksburg. I was backpacking with Tom in 1977 when we found Bone. Tom immediately loaded us into his ski boat to head off for an Italian dinner.When Tom got the boat up to full throttle, he climbed out of the seat and insisted that I take over, which was a bit scary considering I had never steered a speed boat! Woohoo! “Watch out for big logs,” he told me. Yeah, thanks.Peggy with Tom’s friend Lita in the back of the boat, not nearly as worried as they should be.Coming back from the restaurant we were treated to a beautiful Sacramento Delta sunset.Afterwards, Tom and Lita took us on a tour of the Delta and we ended up at Al the Wops Bar in Locke. You’ve already met the buffalo who lives at the bar.The deer were also decorated. One can only wonder how many drinks it takes.If that seems a bit risqué, you can always feed the fishOr practice the popular pastime of sticking dollars to the ceiling.The friendly bartender taught me the trick! And, I am proud to report, I succeeded.Locke when we left the bar. I can count on one hand the number of times I have ‘shut the bar down’ in my life. And I am pretty sure that Tom has been in on all of those occasions.
NEXT POST: I return to my Highway 395 series and visit Virginia City where silver was king and Samuel Clemens adopted the name of Mark Twain.
This old International truck in Bodie is retired, a ghostly reminder of what it once was.
We can thank James Stuart Cain for the fact that the ghost town of Bodie, located 13 miles off of California’s Highway 395, is something more than a few derelict buildings sinking into the ground. Cain arrived in Bodie in 1879 as a young man of 25 with a new wife and towering ambitions. He began his rise to being Bodie’s number one citizen by importing lumber across Mono Lake to build the town’s mines, businesses and homes. He would go on to own the town’s bank and the Standard Mill. Eventually he would own most of the town, which he and his family would love and take care of— an effort that included hiring on-site security. When he passed away in the late 1930s, his family continued to maintain the vacant town and security right up until the time they passed it over to California in 1962 for a state park.
I took this photo of Cain’s home on an earlier visit to Bodie when my wife Peggy (standing in front of the house) was with me.
I featured Bodie’s ghostly homes in my first post. Today I will feature other buildings that remain standing in the town, vehicles in various stages of ‘arrested decay’ and mining machinery.
The Methodist Church, peering out here from behind several homes, is one of Bodie’s most attractive building.A closer look at the Methodist Church.One of my favorite ‘perspective’ photos from Bodie.A look inside the Methodist Church— it comes with a fun story. Can you name the Seventh Commandment? Did “Thou shall not steal” instantly leap into your mind? (Or did you have to look it up like I did.) Anyway, a copy of the Ten Commandments once hung in the blank space at the front to the church. And, as you probably guessed, somebody stole it!Okay, it’s time to get back to the ghostly part of Bodie! You are looking in the window of the local mortuary, complete with a casket with a convenient viewing window. I wondered if the book was a how-to-manual for the mortician— either that or Tolstoy’s “War and Peace”— based on how thick it is. I am sure if you stare at the wallpaper long enough, you will see ghosts.Nearby was a hearse that also included a casket. I was assured that the casket was empty. Hmmm. Not sure I would want to be in either place on a dark and stormy night by myself.This is another of Bodie’s iconic buildings where ‘arrested decay’ means propping it up to keep it from falling over! Once upon a time it was a hotel. Rooms should be cheap now.A few shops still stand on Main Street. This is an inside view of a mercantile store that was filled to the brim with a little bit of everything.Shave and a haircut, two bits! And more ghosts in the wallpaper. I am pretty sure that the guy on the right got a bad haircut. The Independent Order of Odd Fellows’ hall. I’ve always found the name “odd fellow” intriguing. The urban dictionary defines it as “a person who acts in a confusing or bizarre manner,” which would fit my idea. My guess is that the English had something else in mind when they founded the fraternal organization in the 1700s. Maybe my followers from England can enlighten me.I liked the unique look of the front of the shop on the left.Early mining towns had a tendency to burn down. Often. Diamond Springs where I grew up, managed it three times. Having a firehouse was important. This is one of three that Bodie once had. My guess is that the other two burned down.The fire trucks. I wouldn’t be overly optimistic when they pulled up in front of my burning house.The schoolhouse. Impressive.An old globe inside the Bodie schoolhouse. When I focused in on the blackboard, I learned that 6-3=2. Somebody had some fun with that.There isn’t much left of Cain’s Bank, another victim of fire. Apparently he had a fireproof safe. Note how many layers of brick there are.I looked inside and found the safe. These ruins were found next door to the safe-house. I assume that they were part of the bank. I walked through the door and looked out.And was treated to a view of the Standard Mill.There were several mills at the height of the gold rush. The Standard Mining Company mill is all that is left at Bodie today.You have to sign up for a special tour of the mill property but I was able to wander around and take photos from the outside.Machinery used in the mining operations can be found throughout the park.Geared up for work!A Shell gas station once provided service at Bodie. I couldn’t help but wonder if some disgruntled miner had shot the sign full of holes when the gas jumped up to $.20 a gallon!Several vehicles in various stages of falling apart are found in Bodie. This 1927 Dodge Graham truck is ‘waiting for gas.’ No doubt it still is.This one is beyond gas.No gas was needed for this old mine cart. You wouldn’t have to worry about flats either. Wonder if you could hook it up to one of the fat cows wandering the property?No gas was needed for this large ore cart either. But it might take the whole herd of cows to pull it. No bull.Besides a ranger— the cows, a few prairie dogs, and these cliff swallows were the only inhabitants of Bodie I could find. I had a strange feeling that someone was watching me, however. Could it be a ghost?Nope.Every old ghost town of the West needs a wagon wheel, so I will close my two posts on Bodie with this one.
NEXT POST: Timber! A one post break from Highway 395. Never-ever did I expect to see logging trucks using my driveway. Plus some other recent happenings at the Mekemson household. After that we will journey back to my road trip and the silver town of Virginia City.
What better way to introduce the ghost town of Bodie than with a ghostly, tattered curtain. The Standard Mining Company mill can be seen in the reflection.
The history of the gold and silver strikes in the Old West of the mid 1800s is one of boom and bust. Large towns of several thousand people would spring up overnight in remote locations and be abandoned almost as fast as veins ran out and other strikes fired the imagination of miners driven by dreams of instant wealth.
Some of the towns have lingered on into modern times. Diamond Springs, where I grew up in the heart of California’s gold country, is one. A 25-pound gold nugget found nearby in the early 1850s assured Diamond of its boomtown status. It was a sleepy, ‘one-horse-town,’ in my youth. Today, it is more like a sprawling suburb. Virginia City, Nevada, which we will visit next on my Highway 395 series, not only survived but worked to maintain its historical look and has become a successful tourist attraction.
Bodie is another tourist attraction. It has survived as a ghost town, however— in arrested decay as the California State Park staff describes it. Only three people were living there in 1943, the year I was born. That number had plummeted to zero by 1950. (Plummeted being relative, of course.) Gold was first found in 1859 but it was in 1876 when the Standard Company found a profitable gold vein that turned the small camp of a few hard-core miners into a rollicking boomtown of 5-7 thousand people with over 2000 buildings. Sixty-five saloons dominated its mile-long main street. I have learned over the years that the number of saloons is always a mark of pride for Old West towns. (A substantial red-light district is another.)
Bodie was named a National Historic Landmark in 1961and a California State Historical Park in 1962. Today, just over a hundred of its original two thousand buildings remain. I arrived around 1:00 p.m. on my drive down Highway 395 and spent three rather warm hours wandering around checking out the buildings and other historical remnants left behind— and dodging fresh cow pies. There were so many tourists it was hard to get photos without them. But who wants photos of tourists in a ghost town?! I did photograph the free-range cattle, however. Now if only a ghost or two had made an appearance…
One big Mama and her calf. Free range cattle wander around Bodie like it belongs to them, leaving presents on the ground for tourists.It isn’t that the cattle don’t have other country to roam in. Those are the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the distance. You can see a portion of the 13 mile road coming in to Bodie from Highway 395. The last three miles are dirt. Quivera, our small RV, whined about the wash board road the whole way.My idea of what a ghost town should look like! Not much in the way of ‘arrested decay’ here.The buildings the shack is attached to are more typical of what you find in Bodie, however. Sagebrush is the dominant plant, which speaks to Bodie’s desert environment. Mine tailings can be seen on the distant hills.This house looked almost livable from the outside until you got up close.A blue wash basin was sitting on the ground out front.And a small garbage dump found nearby.It’s looking inside houses that gives you the true feeling of being in a ghost town. Visitors are invited to be ‘peeping toms.’ Most houses look better than this.Here are a few homes to give you an idea of the houses that remain in Bodie.I was fascinated with the roof lines of the houses.And check out the red brick chimney!Weathered wood covers most of the cabins. My camera was attracted to this knot. Once upon a time it would have been a happy limb.Several of the residents had used metal as well as wood to cover their homes.One house had a rather fancy door.Here’s the window with the ghost curtain featured at the top of the post. I think that is a honeysuckle vine on the left.A street view in Bodie shows houses heading up the hill. The power poles are modern.Here’s my choice for a ghost town power pole.Now, let’s take a look inside some of the Bodie homes.You would call the call the cops if you looked out your window and saw this!Some even featured groceries left behind. This one had me checking Google to see if they were around in the 30s. They appeared legit!Best Foods Mayonaise, Planters Peanuts, Campbell Soup and Pard dog food were all around.A pot bellied stove! It gets cold in Bodie during the winter. And check out the dining table.A bed, clothing, a trunk and a print of Gilbert Stuart’s famous painting of George Washington. Stuart painted this for Martha Washington but decided he wanted to keep it and use it for marketing purposes, so he left it unfinished. The painting would become the model for Washington on the dollar bill.Outhouses were common in Bodie. This one came with a view!It could be a little risky using it now, however… Propping up is part of the ‘arrested decay’ program.
NEXT POST: We will continue our exploration of Bodie by checking out some of the commercial buildings that still stand including a ghostly old mortuary with caskets. There are also several abandoned vehicles in various states of decay and some interesting mining machinery left behind.
It’s hard to believe that springs bubbling up beneath the surface of Mono Lake were able to create sculptures like the tufa towers you find at Mono Lake.
You’re stuck if you are a raindrop falling into Mono Lake— or anywhere else in the Great Basin. There are no convenient rivers to whisk you away to the sea. Evaporation is your only escape. Water tends to become a little grouchy under these conditions, or make that salty. In fact, Mono Lake is 2.5 times as salty as the ocean, and 100 times as alkaline. The good news here is it is really hard to drown. You can float to your heart’s content. Even sea gulls have a hard time keeping their feet in the water to paddle. The bad news is a minor cut or scrape will send you screaming for the shore.
There is magic in the water, however. Springs flowing underground from the surrounding mountains are rich in dissolved calcium. When they bubble up into the lake, the calcium bonds with the carbonates in the lake and together they make rocks, or what are known as tufa towers. In the past, when the lake was full, these towers hid out under the surface and happily continued to grow. There were few or no tufa towers to see. Mark Twain camped out on the lake in the 1860s when he was searching for a lost gold mine and noted in Roughing It,“This solemn, silent, sailess sea— this lonely tenant of the loneliest spot on the earth—is little graced with the picturesque.”
Obviously, the tufa towers weren’t there to greet him. We can thank Los Angeles’s formidable Department of Power and Water for their presence. Back about 1913, DPW had the challenge of supplying more water to the ever-thirsty Los Angeles with its desert environment and burgeoning population. It decided that there was plenty of water up in Owens Valley along the eastern side of Sierras. DPW didn’t bother to ask the local residents, farmers and ranchers whether they wanted their water to go to LA. It didn’t have to. It had the power to grab what it wanted. Things got nasty. Water wars in the West aren’t pretty. “Greed of City Ruins the Owens Valley” the headlines in the Inyo Register screamed. And it wasn’t far from wrong. Every stream of consequence flowing into the valley was tapped to meet LA’s water needs. What lakes that existed started drying up, including Mono Lake. Starting in 1941, DPW began taking water from the lake’s major tributaries, dropping the lake some 40 feet.
Building the pipeline that the LA DPW used to transport water from Owens Valley to LA.Another perspective on the size of the pipeline.Yes, this is me standing in a segment of the pipeline. And no, I wasn’t around when the pipeline was being built.
Environmentalists mounted a major effort starting in the 70s to save the lake. Fish can’t survive in the highly saline/alkaline water, but some four trillion brine shrimp, innumerable small alkali flies, and algae find the conditions perfect. The shrimp and flies, in turn, serve as a major food source for the two million birds that stop off to dine in the lake. The lowering water levels threatened to kill off the algae, shrimp and flies. The birds were in danger of losing their handy fast food restaurant. In 1994, The California Department of Water Resources stepped in to resolve the issue by requiring DPW to reduce the amount of water it was taking from the lake’s streams and repair some of the damage it had done to the riparian habitats along the streams. While the lake won’t return to the levels that existed when Mark Twain visited, the ecosystem is now being protected. Birds will be able to continue to stuff themselves while visitors can continue to enjoy the unique beauty of the tufa towers.
This handsome fellow is a male brine shrimp featured on a signboard at Mono Lake. Length would be about thumbnail size.This provides an idea of how many alkali flies live around the lake.I took this close up as further proof. The flies spend much of their life under water as eggs and pupae. When the adults dive under the water to feed and lay eggs, they travel with a bubble of water. Think scuba diver. Local Native Americans considered the fly eggs to be a delicacy. While I missed the height of bird migration, large flocks were still flying in formation and feeding on the water’s surface.Wilson’s Phalarope stop off at Mono Lake in the midst of a long journey. Mom arrives first in June, leaving Pop at home to finish raising the babies. Pop and kids start arriving later in June and through July raising the total population to around 100,000. The birds are around for 4-6 weeks while they molt and pig out on brine shrimp and alkali flies, doubling in weight. The extra weight is critical for the next segment of their journey: a 3,000-mile nonstop flight to Ecuador.
It was late in the afternoon when I visited the south end of the lake where the most impressive tufa towers are found so I was able to photograph the towers at sunset. The warm tones added to the beauty. I took lots of pictures. (Grin) To get here look for the signs that direct you to the South Tufa Towers south of Lee Vining off of Highway 395.
To provide perspective, these are the tufa towers on Mono Lake with the Sierra Nevada mountains in the background. Even without the towers I have a hard time imagining why Twain found the area “little graced with the picturesque.”I divided my photos of the tufa towers into three categories for organization. First up was individual sculptures as shown below.Next, are groupings of the tufa towers.I will finish this series with several photos that place the tufa towers in their broader environment but first I wanted to show this picture I took from the north end of the lake looking south. This would have been more like how Mark Twain saw the lake.I was enamored with this side channel in different light.And took photos from both directions. Here, I caught a sea gull landing.A final view as the sun slipped behind the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
What better place to start a drive up Highway 395 with its stunning views of the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range than Mt. Whitney. I’ve already included some photos of this beauty in on my Alabama Hills’ post. Maybe even this one.
There is a lot to see along California’s Highway 395, and I am bringing much of it to you in this series. We’ve already visited the Alabama Hills with its fascinating relationship with Hollywood. In my last post, I took you to the World War II Japanese internment camp of Manzanar with its tragic history and relevance for our modern world. You have patiently made your way through lots of words! Thank you. It’s time for another photo blog, heavy on pictures and light on verbiage. (grin) What better opportunity than admiring the views of John Muir’s Range of Light: the Sierra Nevada Mountains. It’s one of my major reasons for visiting the area. These are some of my favorite photos from the trip.
Ansel Adams added to the fame of the Sierra’s with his magnificent black and white photos. Ansel Adams I am not, but I still can’t resist rendering some of my Sierra photos in black and white, taking a step back in time. I thought that the power poles caught in the sunlight added a nice touch.This illustration provides a perspective on how the Sierras were created. The Sierras are a fault block range with the mountain rising along a fault while the valley sinks. It’s a process that continues today. Think of all the earthquakes in the area. This process also means that the mountains are steeper on the east side than they are on the west— a fact I know well having started many a backpack trip from the east! “Okay, legs, we are going to start this morning with a 3,000 foot climb.”Views like this seriously detract from paying attention to the traffic on Highway 395! Fortunately, a number of pullouts allow you to stop and enjoy the scenes.Sometimes the view is more like a glimpse. The clouds provided drama.The view called for another black and white rendition. Which photo do you prefer?The moon caught my attention here.Out came the telephoto for a closer look. Much of the Sierras’ rugged beauty is due to glaciers carving out the granite.Thunderstorms and showers are common to the High Sierras of the southern part of range. The Sierras increase in altitude as you go south, peaking out at Mt. Whitney.Here they turn dark. The thunder and lightning shows can be quite impressive when up in the center of the storms, and sometimes downright scary. I’ve hurried off more than one high pass. For the more adventuresome, a number of inviting roads lead off into the mountains. Most cars could easily travel over this road, assuming you don’t mind a few bumps and dust along the way.Other roads require a little more thought: Quivera, our small RV, said no on this one. Note how dry it is here. The western slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains pull most of the rain out of the clouds, so the eastern slopes are desert like.The snows were heavy in the Sierras last winter and were slow to melt off this summer. This is a lot for August. One result is that the creeks and rivers can look like this with snow melt. It isn’t something a backpacker could or would cross. Often there are downed logs across these torrents. As you can imagine, it’s a nervous crossing. The narrower the log, the more nervous!If you are a skier, especially from Southern California, this mountain might look familiar. It’s Mammoth Mountain. You can see the ski runs on the lower slopes.I close today with this final view of the Sierras from Carson Valley. At this time last year, I was backpacking down the PCT through these mountains.
Several guard towers like this surrounded the Japanese American relocation camp at Manzanar during World War II. Had I been an American citizen of Japanese descent instead of British descent, it’s likely that I would have been born in one of the West Coast relocation centers surrounded by barbed wire.
The World War II Japanese ‘relocation center’ of Manzanar is located a short ten miles north of Lone Pine and the Alabama Hills just off of Highway 395. I went there directly from the Lone Pine Museum of Film History. It would be hard to find two more different reminders of our past. As far as I can remember, I didn’t know about the site until I was in college. It wasn’t something that was discussed at my home. Had I been an American citizen with Japanese ancestry as opposed to British ancestry, it’s likely that I would have been born at one of the West Coast “relocation centers,” i.e. concentration camps, behind barbed wire fences overlooked by guard towers bristling with guns.
I may have learned about the camps in high school during American History but it was made real for me at the community college I attended just east of Sacramento in 1961-63. I was student body president in 1962 and a member of my council was a young Japanese American woman who had experienced the relocation effort directly. Her family, along with several other Japanese American farmers in the Loomis/Lincoln area, were rounded up, forced to abandon their farms, and shipped out to Tule Lake where the relocation center for most of Northern California was located.
Ten years later in the early 70s, I would come to know another Japanese American who had been shipped along with his family to Tule Lake as a six-month old child, Bob Matsui. In 1971, working together with other environmentalists, I had created a political organization in Sacramento to elect environmentally concerned candidates to the Sacramento City Council and Board of Supervisors. Bob, who was making his first run for city council, had scored high on a questionnaire that we had put together. I had enthusiastically supported him in his run for election and he had won. Not only did he support environmental issues on the City Council for seven years, he continued to in 1978 when he became the fifth Japanese American to be elected to Congress. He would serve with distinction for a quarter of a century and be known for his bipartisan approach in creating substantive legislation.
More to the point of this post, Bob also became a strong advocate for recognizing the wrongs that had been done to Japanese Americans during World War II. For one, he was instrumental in having Manzanar set aside as a National Historic Landmark. In 1980 he joined Senator Daniel Inouye, and Congressmen Spark Matsunaga and Noman Mineta, in an effort to establish a committee to study the effects of the incarceration and the potential for redress.The end result of this effort was the creation of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians. After an extensive set of hearings throughout the West, the bipartisan Commission concluded that the decision to incarcerate the Japanese Americans was not based on military necessity and instead was based upon “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership.” Not one Japanese American was found guilty of aiding Japan during World War II.
The findings of the Commission led to the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 which granted wartime survivors an apology and individual reparations of $20,000. While President Reagan initially opposed the implementation legislation, H.R. 422, because of cost, he readily signed the bill when it reached his desk. I found his comments at the signing ceremony to be quite relevant, not only to the legislation, but for today.
He had started the ceremony by noting “… we gather here today to right a grave wrong. More than 40 years ago, shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry living in the United States were forcibly removed from their homes and placed in makeshift internment camps. This action was taken without trial, without jury. It was based solely on race, for these 120,000 were Americans of Japanese descent.”
Reagan went on to describe H.R. 442: “The legislation that I am about to sign provides for a restitution payment to each of the 60,000 surviving Japanese-Americans of the 120,000 who were relocated or detained. Yet no payment can make up for those lost years. So, what is most important in this bill has less to do with property than with honor. For here we admit a wrong; here we reaffirm our commitment as a nation to equal justice under the law.”
The President concluded his statements by reading a newspaper article from 1945 that had been included in the Pacific Citizen:
“Arriving by plane from Washington, General Joseph W. Stilwell pinned the Distinguished Service Cross on Mary Masuda in a simple ceremony on the porch of her small frame shack near Talbert, Orange County. She was one of the first Americans of Japanese ancestry to return from relocation centers to California’s farmlands. “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell was there that day to honor Kazuo Masuda, Mary’s brother. You see, while Mary and her parents were in an internment camp, Kazuo served as staff sergeant to the 442d Regimental Combat Team (an all Japanese-American regiment). In one action, Kazuo ordered his men back and advanced through heavy fire, hauling a mortar. For 12 hours, he engaged in a singlehanded barrage of Nazi positions. Several weeks later at Cassino, Kazuo staged another lone advance. This time it cost him his life.”
The newspaper clipping noted that her two surviving brothers were with Mary and her parents on the little porch that morning. These two brothers, like the heroic Kazuo, had served in the United States Army.
After General Stilwell made the award, the motion picture actress Louise Allbritton, a Texas girl, told how a Texas battalion had been saved by the 442d. Other show business personalities paid tribute — Robert Young, Will Rogers, Jr. And one young actor said: “Blood that has soaked into the sands of a beach is all of one color. America stands unique in the world: the only country not founded on race but on a way, an ideal. Not in spite of but because of our polyglot background, we have had all the strength in the world. That is the American way.” (Italics mine)
Reagan then went on to note with his usual sense of humor: “The name of that young actor — I hope I pronounce this right — was Ronald Reagan. And, yes, the ideal of liberty and justice for all — that is still the American way.”
Now that’s what being Presidential, the President of all Americans, is about. Following are several photos I took at Manzanar.
The bombing of Pearl Harbor naturally led to a fear of Japan, particularly on the West Coast. But it also released a deep prejudice against Japanese Americans that already existed. This large photo greets visitors to Manzanar.On May 5th, based on information provided by the Census Bureau, this sign went up wherever Japanese Americans were living on the West Coast. They were given two days to gather a few belongings and make whatever arrangements they could for their homes, businesses, etc. Note, the Census Bureau denied that it had provided the information up to 2007.This part of the poster informed Japanese-Americans what they could carry with them and when they were to report. They were more or less limited to what they could carry.A child sitting among some of the personal luggage.Each person was assigned a number. I couldn’t help but think of the numbers that were tattooed on Jews when they entered German concentration camps. One good point was that families weren’t separated. Children were allowed to remain with their parents.Upon arrival, prisoners were required to fill their own straw mattresses.This model provides a perspective on what the camp looked like. Over 10,000 Japanese Americans were crowded into 504 barracks which were divided into blocks with 14 barracks to a block. Barracks were divided into four rooms with each room holding eight people. Each block provided shared bathrooms, showers, a laundry, and a mess hall. Privacy was extremely limited. Both inside and out.Home sweet home.Several barracks have been recreated to provide a sense of what life would have been like. This was the women’s bathroom. You can imagine how hard it would have to get used to, especially if you were a private person. And think of yourself having a bad case of diarrhea. Children on tricycles make their way down a road.In spite of the hardships, and the fact that your were locked up behind barbed wire fences guarded by soldiers with weapons, the Japanese Americans did what they could to make their life tolerable. This family was large enough to have its own section of a barrack and had done what they could to turn it into home.A toy loan center was created so all children would have toys to play with.The barren landscape was turned into farms and parks. These gardeners had a nursery that they had turned over to the Veterans’ Administration when they were incarcerated. (How un-American is that?) In Manzanar, they built park-like gardens.Block residents line up for a meal at the mess hall. I was impressed with how they were dressed. Note the Sierras looming in the background.But can you trust a skinny cook?Tuesday nights were humorously named slop-suey night. I read in one place where residents sought out mess halls with the best cooks. This photo on cloth was in the recreated mess hall barracks. You could see the lights behind it. I thought it created an almost ghostly sense of the past at Manzanar.The mess halls also served as block meeting rooms and social centers. I was amused to learn that one of the most popular songs at the dances was “Don’t Fence Me In” by the Andrew Sisters. The words are below. Another observation here: Nothing stops young love. One of the most popular wedding gifts was nails and boards so young couple could create privacy for themselves.
“Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above. Don’t fence me in. Let me ride through the wide open country that I love. Don’t fence me in. Let me be by myself in the evenin’ breeze, And listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees. Send me off forever but I ask you please, don’t fence me in”
Education was extremely important to the Japanese Americans and they did everything they could to assure that their children went to school. Eventually, they would have regular classrooms.The Japanese Americans built this large hall for community wide meetings and events, such as graduation from high school. Today, it serves as the Visitors’ Center.I offer this last photo of Manzanar in the 40s. How much more American can you get?Today, Manzanar looks much like it did before the relocation center was built. The constant winds still blow and temperatures still climb to above 100 degrees F during the summer and below zero in the winter. This iconic monument to ‘console the souls of the dead’ with its dramatic Sierra Nevada backdrop is located in a small graveyard at the back of Manzanar. But, for me, it also serves as a memorial to the people who were rounded up and corralled here, to their heroic efforts to creat a bit of America in what was basically a concentration camp, and to the dark days in American history their confinement represents. Lest we forget.
NEXT POST: The number one reason for driving down Highway 395: Its dramatic mountain scenery.
John Wayne’s breakout movie where he moved from a B Level to an A Level actor was in the 1939 film, “Stagecoach,” part of which was filmed in the Alabama Hills. He had made 6 movies in the area before and would go on to make more afterwards.
When I arrived in Lone Pine, California, the first thing I did was go for a drive in the Alabama Hills located beneath the towering Sierra Nevada Mountains west of the town. I included photos of this adventure in my last post and noted that over 400 movies and several TV series had been filmed there. I was eager to see what Hollywood found so fascinating about this semi-remote location in the Eastern Sierras. The second thing I did was make a beeline to the Lone Pine Film History Museum to learn more about the movies and TV programs filmed in the area. Most of the photos in this post, I took in the museum. My own fascination with the Alabama Hills started early in my life. I just didn’t know it.
Tonto, Silver and the Lone Ranger.
I was excited. Alan Green had invited my brother and me over to watch TV. It wasn’t just that we were going to watch TV at a friend’s house, it was to be first time we had ever watched TV. The year was 1950. Alan’s dad was manager of the Diamond Lime Company and the Greens had the only TV in town! What made the adventure even more special was that we were going the watch the Lone Ranger. Marsh and I had spent hours glued to the family radio listening to the masked man dispense justice to the remote corners of the West with his ever-faithful companion Tonto and his great white stallion, Silver. Not only did the white-hat hero use silver bullets, he always shot the guns out of the hands of the bad guys— never killing them. (Imagine that in this day and age!) Now we were going to see what the Lone Ranger and Tonto and Silver and Scout looked like in live action on a 12-inch screen. We were not disappointed. I still remember Silver rearing up on his hind legs in the final scene as the Lone Ranger called out “Hi-yo Silver away” before dashing off while the inevitable question was asked by someone he had rescued, “Who was that masked man?”
The fact that the William Tell Overture by Rossini kicked off the episode or that the Alabama Hills provided the backdrop for the opening credits would have escaped me at the time. But they still made an impression. I would forever associate the William Tell Overture with the Lone Ranger. And the Alabama Hills? Well, they came to represent what cowboy country was supposed to look like in my mind. It didn’t hurt that several other popular Western TV series of the time had episodes filmed in the area. Bonanza, Have Gun Will Travel, Annie Oakley, Rawhide,and Gunsmoke are examples. The Bonanza spread, by the way, theoretical included some 600,000 acres that stretched from Lake Tahoe to Virginia City. The imaginary ranch would be worth gazillions today. I will be taking you on a side trip off of Highway 395 to Virginia City as a part of this series.
Movies were even more important in establishing the Alabama Hills as a popular filming location for Westerns. Of the over 400 made in the area, the vast majority involved cowboys— and cowgirls— and horses. (I was amused that the horses often got top billing right under the star. Trigger, for example, was listed above and in bigger letters than Roy Roger’s wife Dale on the movie posters at the Lone Pine Film Museum.)
Note where Trigger is in relation to Dale Evans and Gabby Hayes in this movie poster. He’s “the smartest horse in the movies,” the poster declares. It seems he proved it by signing the poster. Must have held the pen in hid mouth. This cut out at museum may suggest why Dale was able to smile while Trigger was stealing the show. It appears that Roy is holding a gun on her!
We have to travel back in time to the silent movie era and 1920 for the first Alabama Hills movie, Fatty Arbuckle starring in The Round Up. Will Rogers, the renown humorist, also made a 1920 movie that took advantage of the area, Cupid the Cowpuncher. Tom Mix, the best known of the early movie cowboys, arrived on the scene a couple of years later. Mix was a true cowboy who rode in rodeos as well as starred in movies. He was still making movies in the Alabama Hills when the ‘talkies’ took over from the silent era.
“Nobody loves a fat man” this poster about “Round Up” starring Fatty Arbuckle declares. I suspect that quote wouldn’t make it by the censors today. And, as it turns out, lots of people loved Fatty.Here’s a poster from “Cupid Ties the Knot” starring Will Rogers. Note the gun toting Cupid in the background using a lasso instead of arrows.Tom Mix was recognized for his extensive role in the development of movie Westerns with the Golden Boot award. The bucking bronco in the background reflects his rodeo connection.
The cowboys just kept riding into the area during the 30s: William Boyd as Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Tex Ritter, Cesar Romero as the Cisco Kid, and John Wayne, to name a few. Boyd would make some 30 movies in the area. Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, and Tex Ritter were singing cowboys, ready to burst out in song at the least excuse. Their guitars were right up there with their horses in importance. The ‘Duke’ spent the 30s as a B level actor producing B level movies. Six of them had scenes filmed in the Alabama Hills. His big breakout movie, the one that would move him up to an A-level actor performing in A-level movies was Stage Coach, directed by John Ford and costarring Claire Trevor. Wayne played the Ringo Kid. Another world-famous actor who had his breakout movie in the Alabama Hills was Humphrey Bogart in the1940 movie High Sierra. The car used in the chase scene from Lone Pine up through the Alabama Hills to Whitney Portal can be found at the museum, along with a cutout of Bogart. Visitors are invited to take their photo with ‘Bogie’ and tweet about it.
Good guy Hopalong Cassidy also rode a white horse but he wore a black hat.Tex was one of the singing cowboys of the Old West. Here he sits on his horse, White Flash with his guitar in hand.Gene Autry featured his horse Champion like Roy Rodgers featured Trigger. The Cass Country Boys was a country-western band that backed up Gene in some of his songs, including “I’m back in the saddle again.”Champion jumped over a Buick in “Trail to San Antone.” Peggy Stewart was supposedly in the back seat. I think she ducked. I would have. The actual Buick is on display at the museum.A cut out of Humphrey Bogart standing in front of the Plymouth Coupe he drove from Lone Pine to the Whitney Portal in his breakout movie, “High Sierra.”
Not surprisingly, as the fame of the Alabama Hills spread in Hollywood, other film genres began to consider producing movies there. The movie Gunga Din, based on the poem by Rudyard Kipling, is a prime example. Why go to India when a day’s drive would get you to the Alabama Hills? Utilizing over 600 extras, the movie starred Cary Grant, Victor McLaglen, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Joan Fontaine and Sam Jaffe. It was a blockbuster of 1939, second only to Gone with the Wind in box office revenue. Similar in nature, The Charge of the Light Brigade starring Errol Flynn and Olivia De Havilland was another. As was Cecil B. DeMille’s Samson and Davila starring Hedy Lamarr, Victor Mature and Angela Lansbury. Lamarr, known for her sultry look, was also brilliant and helped invent Wi-Fi during World War II. (The Navy suggested she would serve the war effort better as a pin-up but quietly made use of her work.) As for Lansbury, I keep getting this image of her as a singing tea kettle in Beauty and the Beast. Or here’s a fun one in 1943, Johnny Weissmuller in Tarzan’s Desert Mystery. Guess they had to get the ape man out of the jungle. Jumping forward to 2000, we have Russel Crowe in The Gladiator.
Movie poster from Gunga Din.The British Empire’s troops are about to be ambushed by the Thuggees in “Gunga Din.” Thuggees were a cult of assassins that strangled people and existed in India from the 13th to the 19th Century.This elaborate Thuggee Temple was built in the Alabama Hills for “Gunga Din.”“Charge of the Light Brigade” movie poster.“Samson and Dalila” Movie poster.Another noted muscle man, Tarzan, ventured into the Alabama Hills for this desert adventure. I did wonder how the vine on the left made it into the desert. Once a swinger, always a swinger I guess.Movie poster for “Gladiator.”
While the use of the Alabama Hills for movies dropped in popularity in the 60s, it continued to be used for the occasional Western. James Coburn in Water Hole #3 in 1967, Clint Eastwood in Joe Kid in 1972, and John Wayne along with Katherine Hepburn in Rooster Cogburn in 1975 are three examples. More recently, Django Unchained directed by Quentin Tarantino in 2012 and The Lone Ranger starring Johnny Depp as Tonto in 2013 used the Alabama Hills in their movies. The other-worldly look of the area also caught the eye of the Sci-Fi/fantasy crowd. It was a natural for an episode of The Twilight Zone. Robert Downey Jr., aka Tony Stark in Iron Man also made an appearance in the Alabama Hills and scenes from Star Trek Generations and Star Trek the Final Generation were filmed there. And finally, the movie, Tremors, was filmed totally on location.
Quentin Tarantino donated the dentist’s wagon that was used in Django to the Lone Pine Museum of Film History.The Lone Ranger looked like the Lone Ranger and Silver looked like Silver. But Tonto had a whole new look. Who would expect less from Johnny Depp?Robert Downey Jr., aka Tony Stark in “Iron Man” enjoys a photo op in the Alabama Hills with Mt. Whitney looming behind.Star Trek also found the other-worldly nature of the Alabama Hills appropriate for outer space and boldly went there.I’ll end my photos from the Lone Pine Museum of Film History with this prop from the movie “Tremors.” I think it looks appropriately alien, or is that nightmarish?
While this post has gone on long enough and you surely get the point of how important the Alabama Hills were to Hollywood, I just can’t help but mention a few more stars associated with movies that used scenes from the area: Gary Cooper, Kirk Douglas, Tim Holt, David Niven, Spencer Tracy, Maureen O’Hara, Tyrone Power, James Stewart, Randolph Scott, Alan Ladd, Jamie Fox, Demi Moore, Nicholas Cage, Jack Lemon, Gregory Peck, Burt Lancaster, Audie Murphy, Brad Pitt, Robert Taylor, Jack Palance, Rita Hayworth, Vincent Price, Mel Gibson, Elizabeth Montgomery, Robert Mitchum, Steve McQueen, Henry Fonda, John Travolta, Mary Pickford, Richard Burton, Cuba Gooding, Bing Crosby, Alec Baldwin, Minnie Driver, Susan Hayward, Kevin Bacon, Rex Allen and Glen Ford. There are some I didn’t recognize but who made a ton of movies in the Alabama Hills in the 20s and 30s including Jack Hoxie, Ken Maynard, Hoot Gibson, Buck Jones and Tom Tyler. There was also Rin Tin Tin, Ranger the Dog, and Johnathan Livingston Seagull! Enough you say? Google “List of movies made in the Alabama Hills” if you want to learn more. Finished. (Grin)
Two more photos. Roy Rogers and Dale Evans had stiff competition in this post. I was working on their photo caption when this fellow popped up in the window in front of me and then laid down a few feet away. I had Peggy come in to take a photo over my shoulder of the latter.
NEXT POST: I’ll travel 10 miles up Highway 395 from Lone Pine and visit the World War II American-Japanese internment camp.
The Alabama Hills as seen from Lone Pine with Lone Pine Peak looming above.
I’m back! While the three months of hanging out at our home and taking care of my brother may not seem like long, it felt like an eternity. I have one more post to write on the experience but it is going to have to wait. It’s play time. While Peggy decided that she needed a kid/grandkid fix and headed east, I decided I needed a road trip. I loaded up Quivera the Van and took off down Highway 395 along the east side of the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range, one of America’s most scenic and interesting drives.
My journey started in Reno visiting the National Automobile Museum. Even if you don’t care a rat’s behind about old cars, I can pretty much guarantee Bill Harrah’s collection will awe you. (Rat’s behind? I’ve been reading Mark Twain’s “Roughing It” and have been inspired by his colorful choice of words.) From there, I headed south, enjoying the sheer grandeur of the mountains with side trips to Virginia City where Samuel Clemens assumed the name Mark Twain, the ghost town of Bodie, Mono Lake with its strange, other worldly tuff towers, a mountain of obsidian, the World War II Japanese internment camp of Manzanar, and finally the Alabama Hills next to Lone Pine and Mt. Whitney.
I stayed in summer-touristy but interesting towns, visited local museums, learned about water wars, and ate some great food. I’ll take you inside the ‘world famous’ Schat’s Bakery in Bishop where simply stepping through the door guarantees that you gain five pounds, and we will stop at the Copper Top, a hole in the wall front yard family bar-b-que in Big Pine that was named America’s best restaurant in 2014 by Yelp. Yep, its ribs and tri-tip are to die for. When the restaurant is closed, you can get the tri-tip from a vending machine.
Originally, my goal was to head farther south to where Highway 395 intersects I-15 and ends. The road had originally gone all of the way to Mexico but had been done in by bulldozers and Southern California freeways. You can still follow the highway to Canada through remote country where there are fewer people and bulldozers. My primary objective had been to visit the Roy Rogers-Dale Evans museum in Victorville near the highway’s terminus. It wasn’t that I was so interested in Roy and Dale, I wanted to see Roy’s horse, Trigger. The singing cowboy had him stuffed. Visiting the horse had been on my agenda for a long, long time. Boy, was I out of date. Googling Trigger, I discovered that the museum had closed in 2003 and the horse had been moved to Branson, Missouri. (I’ve been to Branson; there are lots of strange things there.) Trigger never achieved the stardom in Missouri that he had out West, however. It could be that most of his fans from the 40s and 50s have ridden off into the sunset.Maybe ifDale had stuffed Roy…
Along the way, I was going to make a side trip to the Maturango Museum in Ridgecrest with its focus on the petroglyphs of the Coso Range. That trip ended up on shaky ground, however. The 6.4 and 7.1 earthquakes near the town at the beginning of the month persuaded me that the museum could wait. I just read that there have been thousands of aftershocks since.That’s a whole lot of shaking going on.
Today I will restart my blog— get back in the saddle, so to speak— with a drive through the Alabama Hills, which I think you will find unique and beautiful. I did. Having the Sierra Nevada and Inyo Mountains as backdrops doesn’t hurt. The set locators, directors, actors, script writers and film crews of the over 400 Hollywood movies made in the area starting in the 1920s obviously found the hills attractive. But I will get into the details of the movies in my next post when I will take you into the Lone Pine Film History Museum where Hopalong Cassidy and the Lone Ranger rub elbows with the likes of John Wayne, Errol Flynn, Spencer Tracy, Ann Francis and Spock, not to mention Trigger, Silver, Rin Tin Tin and Buttermilk. Buttermilk!? Hmmm. Okay, you trivia fans, who was Buttermilk?
I first thought that the Alabama Hills had been named by some homesick prospector from the East. That happened a lot in the 1850s, 60s and 70s. Heck, the lonely miners were even known to name mountain lakes after their favorite prostitutes. What I learned, however, was that Southern sympathizers named the hills after the CSS Alabama, a Confederate War ship that had caused the Union considerable strife by taking some 66 merchant ships valued at over six million dollars during its brief two-year career. Its success was finally ended when the Union sloop of war, the Kearsarge, caught up with the ship at Cherbourg, France and sank her. Other prospectors in the Lone Pine area who were sympathetic with the North, named their mine the Kearsarge. The name lives on in the Kearsarge Pass along the John Muir Trail.
A painting of the CSS Alabama.
My nephew Jay and I on Kearsarge Pass. Even at 16, he was towering over me. You may recall that Jay, now in his 30s, backpacked a hundred miles with me last year when I was hiking down the PCT.
But enough on background. Let’s rock!
Large, colorful rocks with a dramatic backdrop provided by mountains are what make the Alabama Hills special.Another favorite of mine.Quite the jumble here. Can you spot the crow resting on the far right rock?I captured a fun shot of it taking off. I had our Canon EOS Rebel along this time as well as my Canon Power Shot. I was able to take decent telephotos!Can’t you just see a stagecoach going full speed along this road chased by a group of desperadoes? And then racing across this valley. Or maybe it was the Lone Ranger with his faithful companion Tonto chasing the band of desperadoes. Hi-yo Silver! Get-em-up Scout!This sign is located at the beginning of Movie Flats.The surrounding mountains add drama to the Alabama Hills. These are the Inyo Mountains to the east.The Sierras are to the west. This photo features Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the contiguous United State. The dark trees in the foreground are Whitney Portal, the starting point for climbing the mountain from the east. I’ve always started from the west side of the mountain. The trail to the top runs along the ridge line. There is one place only a few feet across with a thousand foot drop on each side. Some fun on a windy day! A different perspective on the Sierras.And another on the Inyo Mountains.Getting back to individual rocks, this one was impressive.So I rendered it in black and white, just like you would see in the dozens of cowboy movies dating all the way back to the silent film era.Here are a few more interesting rocks.The white containers protect plants.I conclude as I started, with a photo of the Alabama Hills from Lone Pine. This time I took the photo in the evening and had Mt. Whitney as a backdrop.
NEXT POST: A visit to the Lone Pine Film History Museum.
Wandering through Time and Place 